


Stand By Me

by FilmEater



Series: Chance Encounters [8]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:41:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1932441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FilmEater/pseuds/FilmEater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas Eve with Tom and Ella.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand By Me

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering why everything's so cheesy, it's because I'm living vicariously through this fake relationship. And I don't feel like a lot of drama.

 

Her head was pounding, her nose was stuffed to the point where she was having trouble remembering what air felt like coming through there, her throat scratched and whenever she swallowed it jolted with sharp pain. Amelia was, blissfully, asleep. She’d caught the cold they all had but was well on her way to recovery. So was Tom. The infuriating man came down with it first, and then proceeded to present the most obnoxious case of the man-flu she’d seen since her own stepfather. Suddenly everything was Ella this and Ella that and Ella I’m dying make me some tea. It stopped being cute by the end of the second day, when Ella caught it from him, then promptly gave it to Amelia. Then, although now they were all equally sick, he still moaned, walked around like he had one foot in the grave already, and kept asking her to do things for him.

Ella growled at him that she’d made chicken soup and he can heat it up if he’s hungry, and he can brew his own goddamn tea. He looked hurt and even more miserable than before, and shuffled to make his own tea, making a show of his suffering. She rolled her eyes, hoping Amelia didn’t take after him or she’d be forced to kill them both.

Now he was better, only sniffling once in a while, Amelia was in a similar condition but Ella was still sick. She’d consumed so much honeyed tea it was coming out of her pores and the thought of another cup made her want to sick up. She was worried she’d grow addicted to the nose spray that she used every night so she could fall asleep, and she had until that evening to bring herself into normal human shape. It was Christmas Eve and they were going to Tom’s mother for their traditional family dinner. Under any other circumstances, Ella would be both excited and terrified from the mix of her very first Christmas and meeting Tom’s entire family. Under the current circumstances, all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a week.

She finished yet another cup of honeyed tea with lemon and ginger, washed the mug and put it on the drying rack. Tom was in the living room, working on his laptop. He’d set up a small tree by their window and they decorated it right before they all got sick. There was a small Hannukiah standing on the windowsill, three candles already set up to be lit later that night. Ella wasn’t much for religion, but she liked lighting the candles.

“I’m going to sleep,” she said. He turned to look at her, not saying a word. They weren’t really speaking since she’d growled at him about the tea. That was two days ago. “Amelia’s on you if she wakes up.” She kind of hoped the baby would wake up, just so he’d do something useful. She turned and went into the bedroom, sprayed in the nose spray and took a deep breath. After a few seconds, her airways cleared. Sweet, sweet air. She laid down and was out like a light.

“Ella,” a hand on her shoulder. She jerked awake, disoriented for a moment. Tom was standing over her, a hand on her shoulder, a baby on his other arm.

“Huh?”

“We have to start getting ready to go to mum’s,” he said.

“Oh. Okay. I’ll jump in the shower and then I’ll take her so you can get ready,” Ella said.

The shower was the best thing she’d done all day. When she stepped out into the heated room, she felt almost human again. She brushed and dried her hair. It was too cold outside to leave it to dry naturally. It dried in a mess of waves and soft curls and she ran her fingers through them, trying to create some sort of order, then gave up and gathered it all in a messy bun at the back of her head.

He’d dressed Amelia already and had placed her in the pen in the living room. He showered while she dressed, then dressed while she sorted out everything the baby might need into a bag. There were so many things she was sure she’d forget something. She went through everything three times before she was satisfied that whatever it is she forgot, they’d be able to do without it.

“Ready to go?” Tom asked. He walked out of the bedroom in black slacks, his blue button-down shirt, a grey scarf around his neck and his thick black coat in his hands. She always felt overdressed and underdressed at the same time when she was standing next to him. Overdressed because she always had more layers, her clothes were always thicker. Underdressed because she could never wear her best-fitting outfit as well as he wore a simple shirt. Asshole.

Ella nodded, picking up Amelia and placing her into the pram. She was ready to go.

It was a logistic mission to place Amelia in the car seat and dismantle the pram and put it into the trunk before the baby started crying. She did _not_ like being in the car without moving.

The ride to his mother’s house took longer than it should’ve, but Ella figured everyone was heading somewhere on Christmas Eve so it made sense. They’d parked outside a townhouse in the London suburb. Ella stepped out of the car, curling deeper into her coat, and looked around the neighborhood. It looked _rich_. And decorated for Christmas, it looked rich and magical. She’d only seen scenes like these in the movies before. But this was real. This was his life. This was her life now. Unbelievable.

They were the last ones to arrive. Ella was officially introduced to Tom’s sisters and their families as well as some uncles and aunts she wasn’t quite in the state of mind to properly remember, and then she was left to fend for herself as Amelia was unceremoniously passed around and cooed at by every single female member of the household. She watched with worried eyes at first, but upon realizing they wouldn’t break her baby, went to sit down on one of the comfortable-looking sofas in the main room. They were as comfortable as they looked.

It was a strange affair, their family Christmas dinner. They all knew their parts, their jokes, their places at the table. She was an outsider. A new, uncertain addition. They ate, they drank – she didn’t, because she was still breastfeeding – they played charades. Tom and Ella lost. They weren’t in sync. They hadn’t been for days. Amelia started fussing and Ella went to warm up a bottle for her, then insisted on being the one to feed her, despite a grandmother and aunts all happily volunteering. She needed something to do. Something to do that would allow her to be in her own little bubble and away from them. They were all so… together. And she wasn’t a part of that.

After they’d eaten and gotten sufficiently drunk, and Amelia was sleeping in the next room with a baby monitor to let them know if she suddenly woke up, music was turned on and they started dancing. Tom danced with his sisters, with his mother, with an aunt she couldn’t remember the name of, Sarah’s husband danced with everyone including Ella. He was nice men, Ella decided, and Emma was fun. She’d learned they’re the same age, with Emma’s birthday only a few days after her own. It provided a strange sense of kinship.

Tom came to stand next to her at some point, a tumbler with an amber liquid in his hand. He looked at the dancing couples in the room – Emma’s boyfriend with their mother, Sarah with her husband, Emma with Sarah’s kid, two couples of middle-aged aunts and uncles. He reached his hand the short distance between them and took hold of hers, squeezing lightly. Ella looked up at him, studied his face. He smiled a little, ruefully, a question in his eyes. Ella nodded.

The song changed and he grinned, pulled her into the impromptu dance floor, leaving his drink on the nearest surface. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close, his other hand still held hers, trapped between their bodies. Tom started moving to the rhythm, leading her in the small available space. When the words started, he sang quietly in her ear.

“ _When the night has come and the land is dark, and the moon the only light we’ll see_ ,” his body urged her to join in on his dancing, not just allow him to pull her along. “ _No I won’t be afraid, I won’t be afraid, just as long as you stand… stand by me_.”

He threw his head back for the next line and his voice carried loudly through the room, causing everyone to turn and look at them, he pushed her to do a twirl and caught her when she nearly fell, laughing. She joined his laughter, then joined him in the singing as well, letting him lead her in his crazy dance around the room, twirling her this way and that, swaying with her through the room. By the time of the next chorus, everyone in the house were singing, smiling.

“Dancing makes everything better,” he said quietly into her ear, still smiling. Ella’s first reaction was a flippant remark, but she swallowed it. There was no point to start fighting again. They never actually started fighting before, just stopped communicating properly. He was right, dancing did make it better.

“You’re not very good at being sick,” she said instead.

“Not at all,” he agreed.

“I’ll remember that. Next time you can go to your mother,” she said, poking her tongue out at him. He laughed at that, then leaned down to kiss her. She broke the kiss with a sniff, needing air. Her nose decided it was done being Mr. Niceguy and back to being a raging bitch. He laughed at her expression. “Poor darling,” he whispered, his hand warm against the back of her neck. He was still smiling. Laughing at her, no doubt.

“Shut up, Foreheadman, this is all your fault.”

“It always is,” he agreed, nodding, swaying to the music of the new song, stepping closer to her, closer, until their bodies were pressed against each other. Then he swayed with her. “One more dance and we’ll go home and I’ll make you a cuppa, how does that sound?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ella said, pulling at her nose and wrapping her hands around his neck. “You’re also cooking tomorrow and getting up to Lia tonight.”

He sighed, “Fine.”

“Good boy,” she smiled, got up on tiptoes and pressed her lips against his.

They swayed rather than danced, hardly moving from where they stood, hands wrapped around each other, foreheads pressed together. The silence was broken. The weight off their shoulders. For a while, everything was alright again. And then the baby monitor came to life with the unpleased sounds of their daughter and they both groaned in unison.  


End file.
